Network monitoring and customer experience monitoring solutions are widely accepted standards for the operations of carrier service provider networks across both fixed networks (e.g., Cable/MSO, IP broadband such as DSL, FTTH, etc.) and mobile networks (e.g., 2.5 G, 3 G, LTE, etc.). These systems monitor network traffic via probe devices that collect user and control plane signaling from telecommunication networks, then process that traffic through a variety of stages to derive actionable information as it pertains to subscriber experience (quality of service, quality of experience), subscriber behavior (application usage, service usage, etc.), subscriber location, etc. In practice, actionable information may refer to statistical indicators (typically referred to as Key Performance Indicators or KPIs) that are computed from source data processed by the probes, and then made available to various different user constituents at the carrier for the purpose of driving their business processes.
A few examples of KPIs include Handover Success (by node, location, etc.), Call Drop Ratio (by node, handset, etc.), Application Usage (by node, subscriber, etc.), Subscriber Count (by location, demographic, etc.), and the like.
However, quality implies the process of delivering data in a reliable and timely manner, where the definition of reliable and timely is dependent upon the type of traffic being addressed. A casual user doing occasional Internet browsing may have a different definition of Quality of Service than a large business user access and downloading databases or financial files. Therefore, Quality of Service is a continuum defined by the network performance characteristics, applications of the users and the particular service level agreements of the users.
Quality of Experience (QoE) is a measure of a customer's experiences using mobile network services. QoE takes into account the needs and the desires of the subscribers when using a mobile service. For example, an operator may provide reliable data services corresponding to high Quality of Service values, (QoS), but the users may still perceive a low QoE. Since majority of communication problems happen in the radio access network (i.e. RAN) of communication networks, these QoS reports typically do not factor in the impacts of a poor RAN performance due to cell congestion or coverage.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a more accurate method of estimating subscribers' Quality of Experience characteristics in a wireless telecommunication network.